Not Just Patients

Hi! We’re Caitlin Rich and Clarinda Cerejo, Co-Hosts of Not Just Patients, a global podcast that aims to bring stakeholders together and break barriers to meaningful patient involvement in healthcare.

We both live with rare diseases, are EUPATI Fellows, and work in healthcare research and communications. Over the past two and a half years, we have hosted in-depth conversations with a range of healthcare stakeholders to examine how healthcare can become more inclusive, collaborative, and effective.

We were recently interviewed by the World Medical Journal, won the Acquisition International Non-Profit Organisation Award for Excellence in Driving Patient Engagement 2025, and were named Patient Advocacy Podcast of the Year in the Corporate LiveWire Awards 2025/2026.

Our guests are patient advocates, healthcare professionals, industry representatives, and other stakeholders who interact with the health system at large. Each of our guests brings in a unique perspective on patient engagement and shares stories of initiatives they’ve championed or been involved in.

We will soon be launching a special series on Underserved Communities in Healthcare. The series will explore what meaningful patient involvement looks like for communities that healthcare systems too often fail to adequately see, hear, or design for. This includes children and young patients, disabled and neurodivergent people, LGBTQIA+ communities, racial and ethnic minorities, and people from lower- to middle-income countries.

Have feedback or suggestions for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at info@notjustpatients.com or find us on LinkedIn.

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Not Just Patients

Underserved Communities in Healthcare | A Not Just Patients Series

September 02, 2026 • Caitlin and Clarinda • Season 1

📣 COMING SOON ⌛

Very excited to announce that our new podcast series on Underserved Communities in Healthcare will be reaching you soon!

For this series, we are getting bigger and bolder and having tougher conversations that we can't wait to share with you.

Here's a little preview, featuring our own Caitlin Rich and Clarinda Cerejo as well as a few of our series guests and partners:
Ashish Rishi from Unwritten Health, Simon Stones, Benjamin AKILIMALI, Carter Hemion, Everline Konyo Mjømen, Sumaira Ahmed from The Sumaira Foundation, and Cory Inglis from BOOM! Healthcare Communications.

Watch this space and gear up to join us as we break barriers in healthcare ✊

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References:

1. Unwritten Health
The Frequency of Exclusion, 2026. Survey of 1,204 people from underrepresented UK communities. Reported findings include 82% having felt their health concerns dismissed by a healthcare professional.

2. KFF
LGBT Adults’ Experiences with Discrimination and Health Care Disparities: Findings from the KFF Survey of Racism, Discrimination, and Health. Published April 2024. Among LGBT adults who had used healthcare in the previous three years, 33% reported unfair or disrespectful treatment by a doctor or healthcare provider, versus 15% of non-LGBT adults.

Let us know what you thought of this episode

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Website: notjustpatients.com
LinkedIn: Not Just Patients
Instagram: @notjustpatients
Substack: https://notjustpatients.substack.com/

Have feedback or suggestions? We'd love to hear from you.
Email: info@notjustpatients.com

Ashish Rishi: 00:00
Healthcare conversations should include everyone without fail. In our research with more than 1200 people from underrepresented communities, 82% of those said they had felt their health concerns dismissed by a healthcare professional. And I have personally experienced this as a person with South Asian heritage living in the UK. And this is why conversations like these matter.

Simon Stones: 00:22
In a major US survey, one in three LGBTQ individuals had said that they have been disrespected or treated unfairly by a healthcare provider. Healthcare cannot work if people don't feel safe to be who they really are.

Benjamin Akilimali: 01:00
[Translated from French] Living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I see how where you live can shape the healthcare available to you, the specialists you can reach, the treatments you can access, even the information you receive.
That is why I’m joining Not Just Patients to talk about healthcare in lower- and middle-income countries.

Carter Hemion: 01:13
When you're transgender and living with a rare disease, sometimes you seek healthcare looking for help with one thing, and instead misunderstandings about your gender become the thing everyone focuses on. We need health care that understands the whole person. That's why I'm joining the series.

Everline Konyo Mjømen: 01:23
As a black woman, it can be difficult to find health research that truly reflects people like me. And I often feel overlooked in healthcare conversations. When certain voices and experiences are missing from research, important health needs can be missed too. It's time to expand healthcare conversation to make medical research more inclusive, more representative, and more responsive to the people it's meant to serve. Because better research starts with listening to patients.

Sumaira Ahmed: 01:52
While I was born in the United States, I am a child of immigrants. I have a lot of exposure to all the different types of health systems out there in the world. And it's very, very, very difficult to ignore all of the inequities for patients living with the same disease. The Sumaira Foundation has a very soft spot for supporting initiatives in lower middle income countries, and we are so, so, so proud and happy to support this podcast.

Cory Inglis: 02:19
Health literacy varies, and just because something's published doesn't mean that it's automatically accessed or understood. And that's the reason why Boom Healthcare Communications is really proud to be associated with this series.

Caitlin Rich: 02:33
Women. Children. Young adults. People from the LGBTQIA+ community

Clarinda Cerejo: 02:48
People with disabilities, neurodivergent people, and people living in parts of the world too often overlooked by healthcare research and policy.

Caitlin Rich: 02:56
Different communities, different experiences.

Clarinda Cerejo: 02:59
But one question running through all of them.

Caitlin Rich: 03:02
Who is healthcare designed for?

Clarinda Cerejo: 03:04
And what should change when it wasn't designed for you?

Caitlin Rich: 03:08
Over the coming months, we're bringing together patients, advocates, researchers, and healthcare leaders from around the world.

Clarinda Cerejo: 03:15
To talk about what being underserved actually means in healthcare research, in clinics and hospitals, and in policy.

Caitlin Rich: 03:25
This is underserved communities in healthcare.

Clarinda Cerejo: 03: 29
A Not Just Patients series

People on this episode

Caitlin Rich

Co-host

Clarinda Cerejo

Co-host